Lay Me to Sleep
by steepedinshadows419
Summary: Post 3x08 - Barry comes home to an emotional Iris, furious and heartbroken that he didn't tell her he almost sacrificed himself to the Dominators. Barry/Iris. Oneshot.


**A/N:** This takes place immediately following the Legends (2x07) ep of the big 4-show crossover. It deals with major angst and some past tense suicidal thoughts from Barry. You've been warned.

 ***** Thanks as always to my lovely beta (and brainstorm helper), **sendtherain** , for assisting again in concocting a clever title.

 ***** I own nothing. No copyright infringement intended.

...

She sat by the window, too absorbed in and numbed by her own thoughts and feelings to turn on a light or the heat, or even to crawl down the hall to her bedroom.

 _"Barry was going to sacrifice himself."_

Iris's eyes closed at those awful words spilling out of Cisco's mouth when he came by Joe's house to give them a rundown of what had happened. Caitlin already knew, since she'd been somewhat close by due to her apparent frequent interactions with Professor Stein, so she didn't come with him.

Despite her and her family's terrifying reactions, Cisco covered up his panic well. He immediately followed up the statement with a quick, _"Don't worry. He didn't."_

He'd then proceeded to give them the highlights – if you could call them that – of what had happened. It was all pretty overwhelming and hard to piece together, which is why Cisco said he, along with Barry and Caitlin, would give a more in-depth synopsis the next day at STAR Labs.

She guessed he expected the end result to be enough to override the very serious life-altering decision Barry had almost made, enough to calm her racing heartbeat. But not even Cisco and Barry making up or saving the world from the Dominators could make Iris stop thinking about the _what if_ scenario that had been so very close to happening. And that Barry hadn't even thought to say _goodbye_ to her – to _any_ of them – if he had gone through with it.

But it wasn't Cisco's fault. He, apparently, had been the final push to keep Barry from his suicide mission. She couldn't take her anger out on him. Because she didn't trust herself to speak with anything other than bitterness and heartbreak, she stayed silent until he left, muttering only a quick goodbye to her brother and father before retreating to her apartment.

Her only assurance was the constant reminder that Barry was _alive_. Despite how angry she was at him for what he'd almost done, that fact alone sent wave after wave of relief coursing through her. It also helped that she wasn't the only West that hadn't let the end result dismiss what had almost happened.

 _"Where's Barry now?"_ her dad had asked moments before Cisco made a break for the door.

To add insult to injury, Barry had chosen to go out for drinks with Oliver instead of coming straight home to his _family_ and telling them _himself_ everything that Cisco had just said.

The silence that followed Cisco leaving was heavy. Joe tried to break it by reaching out to hug Iris, but his beginning line of, _"He's had a long day, Iris…"_ was enough to get her to move just out of his reach and make a beeline for the door, refusing to look back.

It wasn't them, and she was sure they knew that. One of them would've gone after her otherwise.

Now, an hour following that, she couldn't decide if she should be angry Barry still hadn't come to see her or relieved that she didn't have to deal with how to receive him when he did come.

Neutral, just barely holding back a fiery lecture? Mad, passionate kissing, because thank _god_ he's alive? Releasing the inferno of rage she was feeling right now that had just barely started to subside?

Or maybe she just wouldn't let him in. Despite the fact that he'd been crashing with her for about a week now, that could very well all be changed tonight with he and Cisco on good terms again. He might just crash there and come get his stuff in the morning.

 _But without coming to see her_ _ **at all**_ _?_ She didn't think she could bear that.

As if he knew she was thinking about him, Iris heard the spare key she'd given him turn in the lock on her front door and watched as he walked into the living room. She waited until he registered her sitting there on the couch not too far away, but before he said a word she knew exactly how she was going to react.

"Hey," he said, his voice soft and warm. She guessed he expected her to jump into his arms.

"Are you here to pick up your stuff?" she asked coldly.

The color drained from his face. She saw the visible gulp in his throat but refused to let herself be fazed.

Iris turned her head to look out the window.

"Cisco came by and told us everything. Well, he summarized. Said the three of you would give us more details tomorrow at STAR Labs."

Barry hesitantly shuffled closer and, cautious as ever, stripped off his jacket.

"So…you know we won," he ventured.

She wouldn't look at him.

"Iris?" he crossed the carpet to her. His breath caught in his throat.

He stood there for a while staring at her in the hopes that she'd turn to look at him, but she never did. He got down on his knees and sank to the floor. He tried to take her hands, but she sunk them between the couch cushions she was pressed against just as he reached for her.

"I think you should go, Barry," she said. Her voice hitched with hidden tears she hadn't let fall out, and she hated herself for it.

" _Iris_ ," his voice broke too.

He wrapped his arms around her, but she fought him every inch of the way. She tried to unwrap his limbs from her body. She raised her voice. She made demands. She came very close to screaming. She even briefly clawed her nails into him, but it was pointless. She knew it even as she fought him, even as she told him to leave over and over, to not touch her because he didn't deserve it. She never said why exactly she was angry and he didn't ask, but the minute his arms enveloped her totally and she breathed in his scent, she knew she was done for.

He had almost _died_. The fact that it would have been _willingly_ angered and hurt her more than anything. Despite the fact that she knew he was a hero and the definition of a hero almost always ended in selfless martyrdom for the sake of protecting the majority, she still didn't like it. She wanted to stay angry. And she _was_ angry. That hadn't changed. What had changed was his presence in front of her.

Barry Allen, the man who meant more to her than anything, could have _died_. But instead he was alive, in front of her, holding her close. Her clawing turned into a tight returned embrace. Her demands he leave turned into sobs drenching his shirt, until finally it slipped out.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she whimpered, her breathing short and gasping, making her tongue dry up and her cheeks start to burn when she brushed them roughly against his shirt.

It was a small sigh, but she heard it, and she let him move so he was the one sitting on the couch and she was snuggled into his body – into the warmth that she couldn't stop thinking she might have never had again.

"I'm sorry," he whispered gently, rubbing a hand up and down her arm and pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"I'm…" Her breath hitched. "I'm not just your girlfriend, Barry. I'm more than that."

"I know."

"And my dad – he _raised_ you since you were eleven."

"I know."

"Even if for some-" she hiccupped, "idiotic reason you couldn't bring yourself to tell Wally, you should have told us. We're your family."

He sighed and pressed his forehead to hers. Without her permission, her face turned toward his, breathing in the air he exhaled, mere inches away from brushing his lips.

When he didn't say anything, tears welled up again.

"Don't you have any good reason why you didn't? Anything that can let me justify you not even thinking to say goodbye to me? Because let me tell you, Barry Allen, every time I've almost lost you has been the worst time of my life. This would have been permanent. I…" she hiccupped again. "I wouldn't have survived it."

Holding her close, Barry couldn't think of a thing to say that would soothe her. The support he'd gotten from the team had not only prevented him from handing himself over to the Dominators, it had given him the confidence he'd needed to keep going. While it was true that there were a handful of people who stuck by him despite his latest screw up, the majority were against him. They'd eventually come around enough to let him be their leader, but that was a necessity as far as he was concerned. They hadn't forgiven him, they just wanted to save the world. Not only would he have accomplished that by agreeing to the Dominators' terms, but he would probably have earned the forgiveness of all the people who used to call him friend. The fact that he wouldn't be able to enjoy that renewed friendship was deserved in his opinion. He'd done wrong by everyone when he made the most selfish decision he could have in a moment of weakness.

If he was being honest with himself – completely honest – he knew what he would say, the thoughts he would have. He didn't deserve his life. Iris's name gone from the byline of the 2024 newspaper could mean many things, but what stood out most to him was that either they weren't together anymore eight years from now or she was dead. The second was too horrible to imagine, so instead he focused on the anguish of the first. For the last two years he'd been given surefire signs from the future and Earth-2 that he and Iris were destined. That resounding truth made up for all those years he thought she'd never see him the same way. It was somehow all worth it now because there would be a happy ending for them. But even that was gone now. He couldn't help but think the universe knew he didn't deserve that happy ending, and so it had been written out of his future.

Cisco hated him. Diggle hated him. Sara, who he didn't even know that well, accused him as if he had personally wronged her. While Caitlin was much more forgiving now, the things she'd said while she was Killer Frost were thoughts and beliefs she held deep down.

And then there was the fact that forty years from now the world was a much darker place than it would have been before Flashpoint. There was proof of that from his older self sending a message to Rip Hunter and the Legends.

Sure, he was The Flash, and it could be claimed that the people of Central City needed him, but for Barry that wasn't enough. As tense as even he was about Wally getting powers and trying to jump in on the action immediately, even without training, the self-sacrificing voice in his head assured him that in time Wally could take his place. Central City would be just as fine with Kid Flash, the newbie who had yet to screw up, as it was with The Flash, who had screwed up plenty. It would probably be even better off.

Oliver had tried to dissuade him before he finally announced his decision to the team, but Barry had ignored every word and focused on the justification for making this move. It was why he hadn't been successful. By the time Barry was in front of everyone again, he felt so sure of himself, that he wasn't even scared or considering how this might backfire. He was sure it would work, and he could live with dying if it meant saving everybody and maybe resulting in them releasing their hatred of him. That would eat them alive. He knew that feeling too.

"Barry."

He blinked and saw Iris, her face pulling him out of his morbid thoughts. She'd turned in his arms to look directly at him. Her fingers on his face, her eyes searching his.

How could he tell her he'd been so sure his sacrifice was the only way to go because it would not only save everybody, but it would let him give in to the driving need to die without guilt?

He sighed.

"I almost told Felicity to tell you goodbye for me, to tell her I…"

But he didn't say it. It would only make her angry to hear that their sole 'I love you' as a couple would have been via messenger after he'd been killed by aliens.

"You should have told me. You should have- Not-"

Her breath caught in her throat again, and she lost her voice.

"I know," he said and nodded.

"Why didn't you?" she demanded. "I wasn't far. I was right here in Central City where you were."

He swallowed.

"When the story started getting big, I even went to my editor to ask if I could have it, but apparently some snobby rich kid intern with connections snagged it. When I started to complain, my editor reminded me how I didn't want to only be known for stories revolving around The Flash when I started. This obviously qualified as a Flash story, even if there was more to it than that."

She stopped, sighed, and tried to regain her thoughts.

"Did you… Did you not do it because you thought I – _we_ – would try to stop you?"

As good a reason as any, he thought. It was better than where his mind had been at the time when he had somehow convinced himself they would just respect his decision in the aftermath and think of him as a hero. Despite the fact that all of the Wests had been the most forgiving of those he'd wronged, he'd been so absorbed in the consequences of his actions that it didn't even occur to him how much more upset they'd be at his sacrifice than glad.

"Because I would have," she told him, pulling him to the surface again. "I would have told you there had to be another way. You dying couldn't be the only solution. And it could have backfired. The Dominators could've decided without you to protect them, they might as well kill all the other metahumans too. Making a deal with the villain is never a smart move. You know that."

He did know that, he realized woefully. Now he knew that. No longer condemning himself quite so harshly for his mistakes – at least for the moment – he could see how rash his decision would have been. But the world – everybody and everything – had been crushing him. Any forgiveness he saw as tolerance. Any following his lead he saw as will to survive. It felt so right when he decided he would hand himself over. He felt a weight lift off his chest at even the idea of being free of this burden of guilt and punishment. Let another hero take over. He was no good anymore.

"I know," he sighed. "It just felt like the only way," he admitted, which was partially the truth.

He didn't want to lie to her, but it would only hurt her more to confide that a heroic suicide had felt like the best way to go. He didn't want to have to make her give him another pep talk the way she'd done before, the way Oliver had done just a couple days ago. He wanted to fix his mistakes. It wasn't right that other people felt they needed to talk him off the ledge.

Right now _Iris_ was hurting. Aside from the fact that her hurting hurt him, he no longer was. Not the way he had been. It was his turn to stop her tears, to lift her up. Full disclosure of the truth wouldn't do that.

"You found a way out of it with Zoom," she reminded him. "You sacrificed yourself then, but you still survived, remember?"

He nodded. He remembered. If he thought hard enough, he probably could have done something similar this time too, handed over a time remnant willing to die for the world.

But this time he _wanted_ to die. There was no need to make a loophole in which to save himself when that was the case.

"Barry." Her breath hitched again, but this time he didn't notice. "If I ask you something, will you promise to be completely honest with me no matter what?"

He turned to look at her and stared into her scared, earnest eyes. He was suddenly just as scared as she looked. She had his soul in the palm of her hands, and he knew if he agreed to her terms he would end up telling her everything he didn't want to.

"Of course," he made himself say, swallowing hard, keeping the tears at bay because he was afraid of what would come next.

"Did you _want_ to die?" she whispered.

His ears pounded. He began to sweat. He could tell she saw the answer in his eyes without him having to say a word. He felt the goosebumps prickle on her skin where his hand lay. Fear and horror displayed so painfully on her face. All he wanted to do was take it away. But he couldn't lie to her. The struggle stole his voice and left him staring at her until one tear trickled down his cheek and then another one on his other.

"Oh, _Barry_."

Tears starting to stream down her cheeks too, she clutched at his shirt, and pressed herself tighter against him.

"God, Barry, please don't. Don't…don't ever, not—"

"I won't," he promised, because he knew he could keep that promise now.

He knew he'd gotten past the worst of it and his drive to survive was stronger than ever because people believed in him again and he could finally begin to forgive himself.

"And only… Only if there's absolutely _no_ other way. And don't make…" she hiccupped. "On your own. Don't do that. And you have to say… You can't—"

"I'll say goodbye," he said, and then confirmed the promise with words that surprised even him. "But it won't come to that."

Her tears subsided and eventually so did his. Her shaky sigh drained her momentum until the only sound in the room was their shared breathing as they lay wrapped up in each other on the couch.

There was no talk of where he'd stay for the night or if he planned on leaving in the morning. There was no discussion of Oliver or Cisco or what came next.

All that mattered was the two of them feeling whole again.

When Iris woke up in the middle of the night, a little sore from the way they'd lain lopsided for the past few hours, she nudged Barry awake and pulled him off the couch with her.

"Come to bed with me," she whispered when they were standing face to face.

There was no seduction in her words, no implication of taking that next step. The same way she'd slept in his room when he'd had nightmares of his mom's murder as a kid, he would be going with her now. He'd envelop her in his arms just as she would in his. He'd sleep better than he had in months, and when they both woke up the next morning, things would be okay.


End file.
